Borat has Entered the Building: review
The Kazakhstan government is not happy, nor should it be. Sasha Baron Cohen's movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' depicts Kazakhstan as a mysogynistic, anti-semitic, handicap bashing backwater of impoverished villages. Borat arrives in the US to learn civilization for his country and we follow his journey from New York to Los Angeles with stops at Richmond, Dallas, Atlanta etc. Borat is played even bigger and better than his character on HBO's Da Ali G Show. My husband can't stand Borat. I think his dead pan politically insane comments and attitudes are hilarious. Never-the-less, even as I laughed at Borat 's goofs and spoofs in this 80 minute film, it was a very uncomfortable 80 minutes--the comments about Muslims and gay people and the anti-semitic jokes turned my stomach. But in a searching way. There's a scene where an old Jewish couple are figaratively turned into cockroaches-- not funny. To me. Yet much of the audience in the cinema laughed. I kept having to remind myself that Sasha playing Borat is Jewish himself-- you know, I can call my mother what I want but you better respect her. Which is a troubling notion. If people do think this way, is it only a problem when they think this way out loud? Does political correctness curtail freedom of speech? Am I now advocating thought police?
Some scenes were downright frightening: a group of white frat boys bemoaning the end of slavery, a Christian revival where Borat is encouraged to talk in 'tongues', Borat at a gun store where he's happily shown a gun perfect for killing a Jew. And some scenes were just gross--just because hair and fat is added to nudity does not have me cracking up.
That the film's most touching and protective relationship occurs between Borat and a prostitute speaks volumes for the social satire this film is, and for the goodness that deep down Borat's heart is capable of. Or maybe I'm giving Borat too much credit. At the end of the film one wonders that, were this actually real, what 'learnings' Borat would have returned to Kazakhstan from the US with. One thing is for sure though: there are many Americans who have a bit, a lota bit, of Borat living within their souls.
The Kazakhstan government is not happy, nor should it be. Sasha Baron Cohen's movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' depicts Kazakhstan as a mysogynistic, anti-semitic, handicap bashing backwater of impoverished villages. Borat arrives in the US to learn civilization for his country and we follow his journey from New York to Los Angeles with stops at Richmond, Dallas, Atlanta etc. Borat is played even bigger and better than his character on HBO's Da Ali G Show. My husband can't stand Borat. I think his dead pan politically insane comments and attitudes are hilarious. Never-the-less, even as I laughed at Borat 's goofs and spoofs in this 80 minute film, it was a very uncomfortable 80 minutes--the comments about Muslims and gay people and the anti-semitic jokes turned my stomach. But in a searching way. There's a scene where an old Jewish couple are figaratively turned into cockroaches-- not funny. To me. Yet much of the audience in the cinema laughed. I kept having to remind myself that Sasha playing Borat is Jewish himself-- you know, I can call my mother what I want but you better respect her. Which is a troubling notion. If people do think this way, is it only a problem when they think this way out loud? Does political correctness curtail freedom of speech? Am I now advocating thought police?
Some scenes were downright frightening: a group of white frat boys bemoaning the end of slavery, a Christian revival where Borat is encouraged to talk in 'tongues', Borat at a gun store where he's happily shown a gun perfect for killing a Jew. And some scenes were just gross--just because hair and fat is added to nudity does not have me cracking up.
That the film's most touching and protective relationship occurs between Borat and a prostitute speaks volumes for the social satire this film is, and for the goodness that deep down Borat's heart is capable of. Or maybe I'm giving Borat too much credit. At the end of the film one wonders that, were this actually real, what 'learnings' Borat would have returned to Kazakhstan from the US with. One thing is for sure though: there are many Americans who have a bit, a lota bit, of Borat living within their souls.
3 Comments:
nice post. borat is indeed hilarious and disturbing. haven't seen the movie yet, but have watched many snippets. one has to question though, what is more disturbing, sasha cohen's outrageously ballsy social satire or our laughing along with it?
I think your analysis is one of the better ones on the net Soniah. Lots of blogs either have a knee-jerk response to Borat as being racist, or they have an overly liberal and joyful outlook towards him.
I have the same reservations as you do about Borat, but I have to admit I could not stop laughing my ass off during the entire movie.
I just wanted to comment on a few things here:
- I laughed at the cockroach scene, not because the Jewish couple were turned into cockroaches, but because Borat thought they were. I.e. laughing at his ignorance.
- The most frightening scene to me was in the rodeo when everyone cheered on the war of terror and cheered when Borat says "I hope bush drinks the blood of ..." I was horrified.
- The nude wrestling scene: as an antipornography socialist feminist, I was very impressed by this scene. Not because the other man was 'fat and ugly', but because the audiences reaction to this is multi-layered.
In North American society, female nude wrestling is considered a legitimate source of 'male entertainment'. Additionally, male wrestling is considered the epitome of male bonding and a display of masculine bravado (the WWE).
What happens in borat is that wrestling becomes this borderline homo-erotic encounter. In a porn-saturated North America, it emphasizes how it's okay to see two women naked and in bed all the time with their legs spread apart. But in Borat the genitals of both the men were always 'covered' with a black censor strip.
I think this scene exposed the hypocricy and tested the comfort levels of the audience.
Borat exposes the hypocricy not just of the people he interviews, but also of the viewers. I mean if you were laughing at this cause two hairy men are nude - wrestling, well what's 'funny' about that anyways?
Check out Gilad Atzmon's incisive commentary on Baron Cohen's
"Borat":
"Clearly British people do not meet Kazakhs on a daily basis. But they meet many Albanians, Romanians, Poles, Czechs, Kurds, Turks, Afghanis and other people who search for a new future in the prosperous West. Worryingly enough, Borat is made to look very much like an amalgam of an asylum seeker to the UK or any other European country. It is rather interesting that Sacha Baron Cohen, himself a son of a Jewish immigrant to Great Britain, invested so much energy portraying such a low image of Western Europe’s newcomers..."
"Borat is set to present anti-Semitism as a backward reactionary tendency. By doing so Baron Cohen and his team are there to block or even to shutter any form of criticism of global Zionism in general and of Israel in particular... something to keep in the back of your mind while having an evening out at the cinema..."
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5464
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